Mr Keelty told a federal parliamentary committee this morning that "poor leadership" and "poor culture" were to blame for the "disastrous result" and it was appropriate for Mr Kramer, in particular, to stand down.

"It was only mid-February that he stood down. I was surprised that he didn't stand down much earlier," Mr Keelty said.

It's very Australian to have a ute pull up in a place in the middle of the night and throw boxes from one ute into another ute.

Mick Keelty

"In managerial accountability terms, he had to take responsibility for this. There's a difference between responsibility and accountability.

"He was responsible for having all those regulations in place, all those plans in place."

Mr Keelty said there were major problems with guidelines for volunteer staff, ballot papers were stacked near rubbish bins, and there was a very casual way of moving votes from one counting station to another.

"I mean, it's very Australian to have a ute pull up in a place in the middle of the night and throw boxes from one ute into another ute," he said.

"There's probably no other way to do it, but it needs to be lifted into 2014. It's a century-old system that's now in 2014."

His comments amused committee chairman Tony Smith.

"Someone said to me after our first public hearing, there was more security of the Brownlow votes on Brownlow night," Mr Smith said.

Keelty unable to find missing votes

Mr Keelty told the committee that he was unable to conclude where the missing votes ended up.

"So many elections have happened and so many elections appear to have gone well," he said.

"There's no way to sugar coat this. This is a disastrous outcome."

Mr Keelty warned that corruption could not be ruled out in next month's fresh election if people know the result will be tight.

"You could easily imagine with the money involved, with some of the parties and the importance of the Senate - I mean, the importance of the Senate in the last couple of decades has really, just as an outsider, grown immeasurably," he said.

"We're talking about people who are low-income earners.

"I'm not being disparaging, but I'm saying the opportunity for something corrupt to happen is there.

"I had no evidence of corruption in here whatsoever, but the problem is I can't, hand on heart, stand here and say that didn't happen, because the system was so powerless."

Mr Keelty says the committee should consider methods like electronic voting or better security of ballot papers to ensure the mistakes of last year's election are never repeated.